


Temporary Duty Assignment

by smilebackwards



Series: Atlantis Marines [2]
Category: Stargate Atlantis, Stargate SG-1
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-27
Updated: 2016-11-27
Packaged: 2018-09-02 11:06:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,209
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8665216
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/smilebackwards/pseuds/smilebackwards
Summary: “I hope this hasn’t ruined your opinion of the Pegasus Galaxy,” John says to the new Marines.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Companion piece to [Shore Leave](http://archiveofourown.org/works/4473026). MoonHowler asked about what the exchanged SGC Marines got up to on Atlantis so this is the SGC Marines becoming Atlantis Marines. Or fleeing in terror. It’s about 50/50.

“Santiago’s gone missing, sir,” Stackhouse informs John over comms. 

“All right,” John acknowledges. It’s not really surprising. They tend to lose at least one of the new Marines during the scavenger hunt portion of orientation. 

When the SGC started phasing in new recruits, John had insisted they try to make some of the orientation tasks at least mildly fun. The new Marines were already going to have to suffer through hours of documentary film on the Wraith and something like two dozen Pegasus Galaxy vaccinations from Beckett while he cheerfully explained how they’d derived the iratus vaccine from a vial of John’s own blood that had been drawn while he was slowly turning into a bug. It’s not quite the hey-the-city’s-underwater-and-the-ten-thousand-year-old-shields-are-failing-like-right-now that the original expedition members had to deal with, but John’s aware that watching video of hive ships decimating a planet and then being stabbed with 0.5 ml of inactive Kyrellian fever isn’t exactly reassuring. 

“The rest of the newbies made it back to the gateroom. We sent them down to the gym with Teyla,” Stackhouse adds.

“You and Markham sweep from the south pier going east,” John says, heading for the nearest transporter. “I’ll start from the north to west.” With technology that can take you from one end of the city to another in the blink of an eye, it’s about as systematic as they can get.

John checks the observation tower and the hydroponic gardens, wanders down a corridor of abandoned living quarters that have been repurposed for storage. He trails his hand along the cool copper of the walls as the lights come up warmly ahead of him and flicker back to power-save as he walks away.

The sun’s setting over the west pier. John pauses to look at his watch. It’s been more than an hour. He’s going to have to fill out an incident report: Lost Expedition Member 3A (Presumed Non-Lethal).

He’s about to get in the transporter—the one with the missing front panel and pixelated screen that everyone else avoids but John trusts implicitly—when he hears a noise. A muffled thud from one of the old Ancient labs that the science teams raided for everything not nailed down.

When John pokes his head in, there’s Santiago. He holding what’s been dubbed an Ancient yo-yo. A cube of lightweight plastic-like material attached to a thin cord that smoothly extends and retracts with a pleasing _swish swish swish._ John has them in three different colors.

“Sir,” Santiago says, saluting sharply with one hand and hiding the yo-yo behind his back with the other. “Sorry, sir. I got—”

“Distracted?” John offers. He’ll let Santiago keep the yo-yo but he clearly needs to re-stress the ‘do not touch unknown Ancient artifacts’ lecture.

“—lost.”

“I see you managed to find the armory at least,” John says, nodding at the P-90 Santiago has slung around his neck. Sergeant Bates is checking them out to the newbies when they locate the armory.

“Goddamn trick-or-treat,” Bates had muttered when John assigned him but he knew Bates secretly enjoyed it.

“And the mess hall,” Santiago says. “Corporal Grant gave me two of the toba root cookies because I was first.”

John suppresses a smile. Getting two cookies actually means that Santiago got to the mess hall last. Grant’s a soft touch. John doesn’t mention it. Maybe that makes him one too.

“You skipped the physicists, Private,” John says. Zelenka is handing out Sudoku books. John requires all the Marines to complete at least one page a month since his experience almost being killed by a puzzle on Dagan. “I’ll take you to visit them tomorrow.” 

Seeing Santiago with the yo-yo will drive Rodney crazy. They’ve only ever found them in Ancient labs but no one’s been able to figure out what they do aside from zip out and retract. Rodney’s convinced that everyone that has one is mishandling it on a level equivalent to using an Erlenmeyer flask to play baseball, although considering how many stress balls there are lying around the physics labs, John doesn’t see why it can’t just be an Ancient yo-yo.

“Yes, sir,” Santiago says, stepping obediently to John’s side and following him to the transporter. He gives its scarred exterior a dubious look but doesn’t hesitate to enter. John thinks they’ll probably end up keeping Santiago. He’s got the slightly offbeat charm cultivated in Atlantis.

John directs the transporter to take them to the gym. Bantos training with Teyla is an essential part of orientation.

-

Over the next few weeks, the new Marines start to distinguish themselves.

Santiago gets cheerfully lost three more times before John finally institutes a buddy system.

Odell turns out to have an odd expression of the ATA gene that instantly turns on an Ancient laser cannon that even John’s only managed a sluggish response from, but the doors always make him wait a full three seconds before they open and the transporters constantly send him to the sunken portion of the east pier.

Hawkins gets absorbed onto Gate Team Five for a milk run mission that ends with him sister-bonded to an Aletian warrior priestess.

Whitfield enjoys a brief success on the Atlantis black market when he digs a still-sealed bottle of Coke out of the bottom of his travel duffle. Apparently he’d bought it from the vending machine in Cheyenne Mountain right before the Daedalus shipped out, stuffed it into his bag as he’d run for the ramp, and subsequently forgotten about it. It’s billed as ‘liquid gold’ and the bidding war that takes place on a web server set up by one of the engineers in her spare time is fast and furious and bitter. The last comment before the thread closes is YOU THEIVING BASTARD

And Krycek, when Ronan and Elizabeth are teaching everyone to play kantrak—essentially the Pegasus Galaxy’s answer to poker—proves immediately adept, even somehow understanding the threes over fours rule that Elizabeth still has to explain to John every time it happens and he plays a charge card illegally. Elizabeth looks at him with a calculating eye.

Every year when the trade deal with the Thesselians is up, Atlantis has to send Elizabeth to renegotiate. Not because she’s their leader, but because she’s the only person in the city that can beat the Tertiary Minister at kantrak, thus proving Atlantis worthy trade partners so they don’t lose the deal and have to pay out the nose for supplementary wheat from the Belkenese.

“We need to convince him to stay,” Elizabeth tells John after four more hands prove it’s not beginner’s luck and Krycek walks away with a butterfly knife, one of John’s Ancient yo-yos, and two bars of Godiva chocolate from Elizabeth’s personal stash.

John smiles. He may never see it coming his own way, but he’s caught the doe-eyed glances being thrown between Krycek and one of Rodney’s newer lab assistants who’d received the frankly glowing recommendation of “not entirely tragic.”

“Don’t worry,” he says. “I get the feeling he’ll be around for a while.”

-

The gate alarm goes off and Whitfield stumbles through the wormhole, doubled over and coughing. And alone.

It’s not a good sign for the first off-world mission most of the new Marines have been on. John sent them with Markham and Stackhouse to what’s considered one of the safest planets in Pegasus, a trade world where everyone aside from the Wraith observe strict rules of truce. John and Teyla had once been on Lyyas trading for Ancient artifacts and seen two Genii buy low-power grenades from the Carasii without being able to do anything about it. Although the Genii also hadn’t been allowed to shoot them on sight which was a plus.

“What happened?” John asks, anchoring Whitfield with a hand on his shoulder.

“Some kind of raid,” Whitfield gasps. “Sergeant Stackhouse and the others stayed behind to help the traders. He told me to come back and get reinforcements.”

“You did the right thing, Corporal,” John tells him, comming Bates to muster the three Pegasus SWAT style teams they’ve trained particularly for these kinds of missions as Whitfield relates the details of the attack as best he can. 

Teyla’s on the mainland but Ronon and Rodney are in the gateroom, drawn by the alarm. 

“I’m in,” Ronan says.

“Me too,” Rodney says, chin tipped up. With how quickly he packs up his laptop and borrows a sidearm from Private Bennett, John thinks he’s not the only one who’s found Santiago reminding him of Ford.

They load into jumpers and gate to Lyyas. Dust is still swirling through the air from the concussion grenades Whitfield warned them about. There are people on the ground and huddled together, hands raised. John spots Krycek, Odell, Markham and Santiago in one of the groups. He doesn’t see Hawkins or Stackhouse, which could be a good thing or a bad thing.

John wouldn’t have considered himself an optimist before Pegasus and he certainly doesn’t now. He’s found it best to always err on the side of caution when there are Amish nationalists and aliens that can drain your life force with a touch out there.

That’s why orientation also includes creating a video message for family. Rodney told him it was morbid but John doesn’t see how it’s much worse than the fifty-five page waiver with an injury rider that Rodney makes the new scientists sign. 

Still, John doesn’t plan to lose anyone today.

He fires a few blasts, well outside the range of any raiders or hostages, as a show of force and to get an assessment of the raiders’ firepower. Sure enough, they shoot back at the jumper. Small arms. Bullets rather than beams.

Superior firepower, training and numbers are the kind of advantages John likes to have. He orders one of the jumpers to stay in the air, guns primed, and the other two to land and surround the raiders.

The raiders are wearing dull colored clothing with crosshatched borders along the sleeves that John doesn’t recognize. They look at the Atlantis soldiers warily, eyes flicking between their P-90s and the gouges in the earth left by John’s warning shots. John wonders if they realize the wrath of dozens of worlds is going to find them, whether they manage to escape now or not.

One of them is apparently willing to take a risk. He looks John straight in the eye, defiant, and starts to turn to point his gun chest-level at one of the civilian traders. 

Small arms can kill as surely as laser blasts. John doesn’t hesitate. He shoots the man in the left kneecap and then the right for good measure.

It’s over quickly after that. The other raiders lower their weapons and the Atlantis Marines disarm them and round them up to present to the Lyyasian authorities.

Markham, Krycek, Odell and Santiago make their way toward John and his team. John’s glad to see Stackhouse and Hawkins are with them now, although Hawkins is cradling what looks like a broken arm.

“Thanks, sir,” Markham says.

“Sir,” Stackhouse echoes.

“I hope this hasn’t ruined your opinion of the Pegasus Galaxy,” John says to the new Marines. He’d really like to keep at least a couple of them.

Rodney snorts and Ronan rolls his eyes. John turns to look at the Marines and finds them looking back at him with the kind of pride he started getting from the first-wave Marines after holding off a Genii invasion.

“Sir,” they says, in almost-unison. 

John swallows and looks away. He says, “Let’s go home.”

-

Three months later, when it’s time for the new Marines to get shipped back to the SGC, Odell and Whitfield are packed and waiting in the gateroom with almost insulting promptness. Hawkins and Santiago are lingering back in corridor. Krycek hasn’t even appeared yet. 

“When are you going to tell them they get to stay?” Rodney asks, nodding over at where Hawkins and Santiago haven’t budged from the wall. Krycek has emerged from a transporter and is making his way slowly over to them, hand clasped with Sasha.

“Caldwell has the official orders,” John says. But he supposes he can go put them out of their misery. O’Neill confirmed Atlantis could keep any volunteers in the morning databurst. While also implying that those volunteers would be considered mildly insane. 

John calls them together and they crowd around him, curious. He’s already said his goodbyes and thanked them for their service. “It won’t be official until the paperwork is signed but I got word from General O’Neill that any of you who would like to remain on Atlantis can stay here with us.”

Krycek smiles wildly over John’s shoulder while Hawkins and Santiago high five. Odell and Whitfield look horrified.

“It’s an option, not an order,” John says. Everyone on Atlantis volunteered to be here. “You can go home to Earth on the Daedalus or you can serve here in Atlantis. Just let me know your choice before the ship leaves.”

John thinks Gate Team Five will want Hawkins full time, that Santiago has already been essentially adopted by the Athosians, that Krycek has the strategic mind needed for a team leader. He thinks, smiling, three out of five ain’t bad.


End file.
